Fight of Our Lives
by half-brain
Summary: Sequel to Prelude to Horror. After the mansion incident, Chris and Jill follow separate paths to take down Umbrella. Chris meets old friends in Paris while Jill tries to survive the events of RE3. (cancelled)
1. A New Life

I'm back! Took so long trying to make sure my idea was working that I forgot to post it... oops. May take a while to update, but I'll get there. Thanks for reading! Some thanks: Leo5882723, Boss-Awesome, Special Agent FUNK. Some upcoming references to other stories: Christmas in September by Drew Skye, End of the Line by CJJS, and maybe more that I have forgotten. If you see a shoutout i forgot to mention, send me a message and I'll get it in.

* * *

><p>The helicopter was one hundred feet away, ninety feet, eighty. Chris called out, extending a hand. The skids wobbled in the air only inches above the landing pad.<p>

But Jill felt it right behind her, felt the pounding steps on cracked concrete, heard the hissing breath, wasn't sure if the heartbeat came from her or it. The Tyrant. Violent images flashed through her mind of its claws impaling the traitor Wesker, of it effortlessly tossing Barry to the ground. A claw raked the back of her shirt, and a fresh surge of panic-driven adrenaline pushed her faster. The helicopter pulled up, she leapt, and her fingertips barely brushed Chris' as she missed and was falling. Dead for sure.

Her knees cracked against the worn floor and she was in a dimly lit, badly wallpapered hallway, flashes of lightning illuminating the faces of shambling undead coming her way, hungry, moaning. She turned, and with a gasp of surprise came face-to-face with Wesker, the muzzle of his Beretta millimeters from her nose. He grinned and pulled the trigger.

"No!"

She sat up on the bed, her desperate cry still ringing in her ears. Thank God, just a dream. Chris, sleeping on the couch in their temporary residence, stirred and woke up with a sleepy grunt.

Jill had been plagued with nightmares ever since the mansion; that is when she was capable of sleep at all. Whenever she closed her eyes the memories came back, even the smell. A smell similar to that of rotten fruit.

"You okay?" Chris asked, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes and squinting at the clock. Two in the morning.

"Yeah, just another nightmare. I still… I just… I need a beer." She began to get up.

"You need a beer like I need to take up smoking again." He looked at her, concerned. "We're gonna be okay, I promise."

"I guess."

She pulled the covers back over herself, and Chris did his best to get comfortable on the small couch again. "Chris, do you think anything is ever going to be normal again?"

He looked at her, did his best at a reassuring smile before just sinking back into a rather sullen expression, and answered, "I hope so."

* * *

><p>"So what do we know about the G Virus?"<p>

Chris watched Jill's eyes avert. "Absolutely nothing. Our one lead disappeared, and we've been trying for almost a month to get the FBI to investigate. Chris, we're running out of people we can trust, places we can go, time."

"I know."

She looked back up, a pained expression on her face. _There's nothing I can say to make it better_, he thought as she did her best to hold her emotions in. That realization hurt worse than anything. In the last month, they had lost almost everything – their friends, their jobs, their safety and security. Who knew when Umbrella would send someone to silence them? Jill regained her composure and took a deep breath.

"You have to go to Europe this week. We can't hold it of any longer."

"What?" He was a little startled. "But I thought we were staying to try to sort stuff out here."

"I'm staying, you're going. You need to make your move before Umbrella catches wind of our plan, or it'll be all for nothing and we can't risk that."

"I won't leave you," he said. "We need to stick together."

"Barry has to be with his family up in Canada and Rebecca doesn't have the experience required for this stuff, which leaves you and me. We can't be in two different places and together at the same time."

She was right, as much as Chris hated to admit it. But he couldn't bring himself to leave her; she was his partner… maybe more.

"Dammit, why does it have to be like this?"

"I'll meet you in Paris by early October, I promise." She forced a smile. "And don't forget the paperwork for your sidearm this time."

"Hey! That was one time, and I didn't even know we were going on a plane," he defended with a chuckle.

They sat silent for a moment, old memories replaying in their minds. Not long ago, the two former S.T.A.R.S. members would never have believed this possible. It was all like a nightmare, and Chris just wished it would go away.

* * *

><p>Jill had a knot in her stomach the entire two-hour drive from Raccoon to Denver International. She wanted him to stay as much as he himself did, but knew there was no other way. He tried to joke around a bit, but ultimately neither of them were in the mood.<p>

"You're sure you have everything, the money, your clothes, snacks for the plane? Your friends will be there to pick you up?" she asked, waiting next to Chris in the line to check luggage.

He smirked. "Yes mom."

She punched him in the arm.

Once his suitcase was on its way to the cargo hold, it was time to part ways. He placed a hand on her shoulder and said, "I'll see you in a month. Be careful. Oh, and I left something for you on the bed." He opened his arms to give her a hug and she did something even she hadn't anticipated. Her lips met his in a kiss. Jill pulled away, a bit embarrassed and angry at herself. Both their cheeks burned red.

"I, uh, Chris, I didn't-"

She was cut off as he wrapped his arms tight around her, silencing the apology before letting go.

"Don't sweat it. For a first timer, that was pretty good."

He grinned mischievously at her before she punched his arm again. She tried to smile and managed to choke out a goodbye.

"Goodbye Jill. Take care of yourself."

He turned and walked away, sparing a final look back before heading through security. She was sure she saw tears in his eyes.

* * *

><p>Chris arrived in Charles de Gaulle Airport around twelve hours later with a headache from someone's perfume and a grumbling stomach. First order of business, however, was to find Josh Carmichael. He was supposed to be at a nearby café. The two were old Air Force buddies, and it had been easy to convince the spontaneous mechanic to help out. Josh was also an innovative prankster, and the skills required for such a title may come in handy, as well as his French-speaking girlfriend. She would be a necessity to have around. He believed her name was Elizabeth. He snatched his suitcase from the luggage carousel.<p>

Meanwhile, a few streets away, Josh sat at a small, glass table and took in the scents of food and coffee. People bustled about in their various colors and fashions, bundled up against the cold. It was frigid for September, and Josh watched little white clouds puffing from the mouths of passers by. He rubbed his hands together for warmth.

"When is your friend supposed to get here?" he heard Elizabeth ask, one of few English voices in the café.

Josh checked his watch. "Any time now."

Elizabeth watched him from behind a steaming cup of coffee, her thin fingers wrapped around the ceramic mug. She brushed a lock of blonde hair out of her face with the other hand.

Josh looked back up to see some one making their way towards them, a man in his mid-twenties with short brown hair and a leather jacket. Chris. He waved the tired looking Redfield over.

"Long time no see! Man, you kinda look like death."

"Right back at ya, Carmichael. You're Elizabeth, right?" he said, looking at her and extending a hand. "Chris Redfield."

"Elizabeth Puget. Glad to finally meet you, I've heard plenty of stories about the legendary Redfield." She smiled, bright white teeth shining brilliantly as she clasped his hand and shook it.

Chris sized her up. She was rather attractive, slim but tough from the looks of it, and there was a certain sparkle in her pale-blue eyes. And, judging by her lack of an accent, she was American. He turned back to Josh. "There anywhere private we can talk?"

"Yeah, sure, we'll head there right away. Hey, you still haven't told us what this is all about."

"That's why we're going elsewhere."

Josh nodded in understanding. "Rule number two."

Chris grinned. "Never ask questions.

"Just like old times."


	2. Murphy's Law

A/N: Second chapter already! Well, so I had already written this a while ago, but... anyways. Please review! It's helpful and also gives me more stories to read.

* * *

><p>Jill tossed her keys onto the table, looking around. The apartment felt strange, seeing as how it was devoid of personal possessions. Well, except for a couple changes of clothing, three books, and her sidearm. Everything was over with one of her old friends from the academy in Philadelphia – papers, photographs, and anything else that couldn't be readily carried on her person.<p>

Chris had been gone for over a month, and she still had gotten nowhere. Irons had only become more of an ass without Wesker bribing him, Brad had gone AWOL a week ago, and no one was willing to take her seriously and investigate Umbrella. She wanted to strangle someone. _I should have just left with Chris._

She turned on the TV, switching to the news channel only to see a commercial for one of Umbrella's products. It made her feel sick to her stomach. They were getting away with this, with the breaking of international laws, with murder, everything. There truly was no way to stop them.

_Snap out of it_ her mind reasoned. _If you can't pull yourself together, there _won't _be a way. _Of course, her inner voice was right. It almost always was.

The corner of something yellow stuck out from under a book. She pulled it out, remembering exactly what it was even before it came out from under Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. The note Chris had left for her, giving a clue as to the location of supplies he had hidden in case something went wrong. She couldn't ask for a better friend; Chris always had her wellbeing at mind, even if he took being prepared to the level of a paranoid Boy Scout. Why could she never seem to return that kind of care?

"We interrupt your current programming with this urgent message."

_What?_ She looked back up at the screen, seeing both news anchors' faces displaying a combination of disbelief and horror. Jill should have seen this coming, new what was about to be said, and her heart sunk.

"Rioters are filling the streets up in the Victory Lake District, site of the recent and unsolved cannibal murders and a series of brutal animal attacks. RPD SWAT is reported to have been sent in, but Chief of Police Brian Irons has yet to release an official statement." The anchor paused, staring at the teleprompter and his eyes grew as wide as saucers. "Just in, the police have opened fire on the crowd, as per orders. The rioters are… eating the officers?"

Whoever was in charge of censoring missed a short burst of profanities.

The second anchor swallowed nervously before picking up where the first left off. "Eleven officers down, four missing. Unknown civilian casualties. Citizens are advised to…"

Jill left the television set on as she quickly changed before grabbing her boots, gun belt, and sweatshirt. Time to get the hell out of dodge.

* * *

><p>Chris let out a sigh of relief as he stepped out the glass front doors and into the dull but natural light outside. Elizabeth's car idled in the parking lot, one of few vehicles at the Paris Umbrella office. Getting in the passenger seat, he loosened the plain, dark blue tie around his neck. Never cared for the things; always felt like they were trying to choke him.<p>

"Go well?" asked Elizabeth, putting the car in drive.

"As far as I can tell, they don't suspect a thing."

His fingers fumbled around in the plain business jacket before finding his brass lighter, one of his few prized possessions and an heirloom from his grandfather. Barry occasionally gave him flak for how dull its once polished surface had become as a result of his habit of toying with it while he thought.

They passed the guardhouse on their way out, a feature that reminded Chris of the gated communities in Stoneville. A black-clad Umbrella security guard nodded politely at them as they drove past and onto the road.

"It'll be a while before I can start getting information, but now we have a foothold. Luckily most of the people there speak fluid English. The papers helped too."

"Glad to hear it. I like the alias we came up with."

"Matt Addison. Gonna take me a while to get used to that."

A black Mercedes trailed behind them, and Chris suddenly got a very bad feeling. "Elizabeth, take a right up here."

She did and the car followed, bumper bobbing up and down as it went over a bump. Maybe coincidence, but Chris doubted it. "In three blocks, I want you to hang a left." The sedan was still behind them. Damn. "We have a small problem. We're being followed."

He barely got the sentence out when a second, identical car slammed into the driver's side, forcing Elizabeth's BMW skidding sideways, tires screeching over the sound of twisting metal and shattering glass. Then came the unmistakable boom of a shotgun.

"Drive!"

The car lurched forward as the car behind them impacted, then Elizabeth floored it. Its chassis rocked as another shotgun blast slammed into them and a scattering of pistol shots spider webbed the rear window.

"Who the hell are these people? Umbrella?"

Elizabeth sent the car careening around another corner as Chris checked his magazine and palmed it back into the gun before racking the slide and responding. "Probably, unless we got someone else pissed at us. Someone must have tipped them off."

"Are they still back there?"

Almost as if to answer her question, more gunfire erupted and bullets raked the back end, one clanging off something on the bottom of the car. A submachine gun chattered.

"Don't head back to the apartment, try to take us somewhere with lots of other people. With any luck, they will either stop shooting or stop following us for now."

Chris stuck his hand out the window, squeezing the trigger in an attempt to return fire. Up ahead was a street alive with activity. Perfect.

* * *

><p>Jill's boots clomped down the steps leading down to the ground level of the apartments. Sirens wailed from north of where she was, and the occasional distant gunshot made her flinch. Oh God, this was really happening.<p>

A police cruiser screamed past, and Jill noticed that a number of other sirens were getting closer as well. She guessed that meant that they were falling back, which implied things Jill didn't want to imagine. _No big surprise_ she supposed. The SWAT team's paddy wagon wasn't far behind the first squad car, the massive turbo diesel roaring. Blood was splattered in arcs along its armored sides, a few handprints smeared through the red fluid. Suddenly the vehicle swerved back and forth, veering at first into the parking lot then trying to get back to the road, and two of its tires left the ground. The massive vehicle toppled over sideways, scraping along the asphalt before coming to a rest mere feet from the brick apartment complex. Jill sprinted forward to see if the driver had survived.

One of two heavy back doors swung open and hit the ground with a crash, and an officer struggled to pull himself out. Silva.

But as she moved to help, she saw that it wasn't Silva anymore. His blood encrusted fingers clawed for purchase on the pavement in an attempt to drag his hungry, broken form toward Jill. A knotted mess of intestine trailed behind, sliding through the trail of gore he left. Congealed blood burbled from his pallid lips as his jaw dropped open in a ghastly moan. Every ounce of fear welled up inside her, he terror she had managed to hold down so long rising to the surface along with the bile in her throat. She grabbed her keys from her pocket, dropped them, and began shakily trying to find the key to her hatchback before attempting to jam it in the lock.

Silva was getting closer, his groaning more incessant. She couldn't shoot him, had to shoot him, there really was no alternative. The Beretta slid out of its holster, she clicked back the hammer and aimed. With a squeeze, the sidearm bucked and Silva's head snapped back, eyes rolling out of view in their sockets, crimson trickling from the hole in his forehead down his face.

"I'm sorry."

She slowly decocked the Beretta and flipped the safety back on.

Her car came to life and she flew down French Street, but didn't make it far when she hit a traffic jam. Hot far away was the cause of the standstill.

A tide of undead hungrily surged forward as people fled their vehicles, shouting and screaming. Some had been trapped inside by the proximity of other cars and were devoured once rotting fists managed to pound through windows. The wave of death didn't so much as slow when four of the ghouls knelt down and tore a struggling man to pieces. A familiar stench nearly overpowered Jill, making her gag. She turned to get back in her car when a pickup slammed into it from behind. The Datsun's front end was wrenched up at a forty-five degree angle, flames beginning to lick up from under the hood, and the front axle was no longer attached. The snapped drive train rest on the ground, and her hatchback was a crumpled mess. Taking a shocked step forward, she saw the other driver's gray matter dribbling down the inside of the cracked windshield.

_Guess I'm walking._


	3. Ever Present Danger

A/N: Wow... so I kinda fail at updating regularly. Been kinda busy with graduation and stuff. Sorry for the short chapter, writer's block strikes again, but hope you enjoy!

* * *

><p>The tires screamed as Elizabeth's car slid onto the busier street, a few horns sounding in response to their reckless maneuvers. At least the gunfire had temporarily let up, despite the fact that their pursuers were right on their tail. Mopeds and small cars zipped past while Chris watched the speedometer continue its ascent.<p>

"We aren't gonna be able to lose them in here!" he yelled over the nearly redlining engine. "Too little room to move around!"

Elizabeth swerved quickly into the other lane, trying to put more distance between themselves and their attackers.

"Uh, Chris… we have a problem."

They were just about out of fuel.

"We need to find some place to park where we can get lost in the crowd, or something. Over there!"

As Elizabeth brought the car to a screeching halt in the theater's parking lot, Chris fumbled a fresh magazine into his Samurai Edge then jammed his thumb down on the seatbelt release. "Go!"

They leapt from the car and ran for the entrance, pushing a few customers out of the way in the process.

"Maybe there's an exit in the back."

He heard more yelling as men in dark clothing charged through the door and spotted them. Chris took off with Elizabeth hot on his heels. Crashing through a door, they sprinted past two very confused workers.

Elizabeth stopped, asking something frantically in French. The workers answered, pointing to the exit, and Elizabeth thanked them. They burst out into an alleyway. Dead end to the left, and to the right…

They were trapped.

* * *

><p>Jill crouched, half hidden by the corner of a large, green dumpster. A few undead milled aimlessly about on the road, one dragging a maimed foot unsteadily.<p>

Her radio crackled and she internally cursed herself for leaving it on. One zombie, a woman with a blood-smeared blouse and missing a section of scalp, turned. "All officers who are able, fall back to the Raccoon Police Department barricade. I repeat-"

She silenced the device. Now the woman was shambling towards her and the others had taken notice.

Click click click click click.

Jill froze. Though she had never owned a dog, she had come to know that sound very well. When partnered with a gurgling, hungry growl and the appearance of three infected Dobermans, it was enough to turn her blood to ice. Flaps of bloody skin and fur hung from exposed, sickly red, varicose muscle and yellowed bone. Jill held her breath, not wanting to move as much as an inch. One of the horrendously deformed animals sniffed at the air, baring it's teeth as the growling grew louder, then they looked right at her. _Oh shit._

With a gravelly bark, they charged. Her Samurai Edge was out immediately, cocked, safety off. The dogs were mere yards away, maddeningly close. Her first shot blasted the contents of one dog's skull across the pavement. It collapsed and skid to a stop.

The second canine leapt and three rounds punctured its chest, dropping it. The third attacked with a howl. Jill aimed and squeezed the trigger, rewarded with only a click. The slide was locked open, magazine empty. She dodged the rotting creature while fumbling for a fresh clip. The dog sped past and whirled around, claws scrabbling for purchase on the asphalt, and it barreled towards her again. Backpedaling, her hand brushed her spare mag the moment she tripped, and she stumbled backwards. The dog's paws slammed into her, knocking her to the pavement. She was pinned under its weight.

It howled again and lunged for Jill's throat. She held it back, her hands sinking into slimy, purple-veined layers of flesh as it struggled to get within biting distance. Insanely large teeth snapped together a hair's breadth from her nose.

Another part of her brain registered that the walking dead were a lot closer. Only three of them, but just one bite and she was toast.

The dog wouldn't budge, its paws firmly pinning her shoulders. Jill was wearing out under the monstrous animal's strength. She didn't want to die, especially not like this, not like Joseph that night in July.

_Chris' knife._

Along with the note, Chris had left her one of his favorite combat knives, a Bowie with the USAF insignia engraved on the blade. With one last burst of strength, Jill snatched it from her belt and plunged it up through the dog's ribcage. The creature yelped in surprise and pain before dropping to the bloody asphalt.

A moan reminded her of the next threat, and she plucked her Beretta from where it had landed before reloading. They were too close for comfort, but three well placed headshots solved that problem quickly.

Her clothing was drenched with smelly gore, and she made a mental note to change whenever she got a chance. Not only was it disgusting, but also a major hazard if she got cut and the fluids entered her bloodstream. A shower on the other hand would probably have to wait until she escaped.

A helicopter roared overhead, the orange crate dangling from it's underbelly skimming close to the nearby roofs. One of the big Sikorsky's. Something about it left Jill with a very bad feeling.

Shrugging it off, she continued down Easton. Jill was still hopeful that the police station was safe, but realized it probably wasn't. _With my luck, there probably isn't a single living soul in that old building._

Avoiding the carriers whenever she could, it wasn't long before she had made it to Park Street, one major road away from the rear entrance to the RPD.

The thought crossed her mind that the infection had travelled impossibly fast to have been simply spread by the remaining undead from the mansion filtering down into the Victory Lake area, it must have gotten into the water or something. Either way, this was going to be one hell of a night.

Gunfire erupted a couple blocks away, to the west. Other survivors? Hoping she wasn't making a big mistake, Jill began jogging towards the commotion and away from the police department. She was still a cop, meaning it was her duty to defend whoever she could, even if it put herself in danger. If she ever got out of here, Jill was reconsidering her career choice.


End file.
